Village Books Bestsellers--And Why

 

"That's a pretty good characterization of our community," Chuck Robinson, co-owner, said with a laugh.

 

Set at the foot of Mount Baker, some 90 miles north of Seattle, Bellingham is an educated, spiritually rich community with a population of 75,000 that nourishes the bookstore, just as the business feeds the minds and souls of its customers.

 

Nowhere is that more apparent than on Village Books' eclectic bestseller lists, where Robinson's own store-published memoir about community-building, It Takes a Village Books, outsold Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy for two weeks this summer, and where local author Jim Lynch's novel Border Songs, set in Washington State, outsold Cutting for Stone, The Lacuna and The Girl Who Played with Fire on this week's list.

 

Like many titles on Village Books' lists, Border Songs is one that Robinson, his co-owner and wife, Dee Robinson, and their staff are actively promoting. They chose it for the upcoming county-wide 2011 Watchom County One Book Together program in conjunction with area libraries, and invited Lynch to the store for the 2009 hardcover release and again in July for the paperback release. The book is set in northern Washington and touches on such timely issues as the U.S. border patrol, feelings of displacement and drug smuggling.

 

"We do find that our events at the store highly influence our bestseller list," Robinson said. "And certainly what we choose to feature in the store makes a lot of difference. If you look at the paperback bestsellers, it's a pretty good mirror image of the IndieBound list. That's because those are the books that we're featuring in the store."

 

Illustrating this symmetry is Washington Rules, Andrew Bachevich's left-leaning analysis of American military hegemony, which hit the store's list and the IndieBound national list last week simultaneously. While national press brought the title to the public's attention, an in-store reading and signing drew some 225 people and propelled the title to the local #1 spot. (The appearance also boosted sales of Bachevich's earlier book The Limits of Power, which is also on the store list.) Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer, who lived for a time in Seattle, and Half the Sky by New York Times columnist Nickolas Kristoff and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, also hold places on both lists.

 

Village Books also stocks a large spiritual section. In the store's #2 and #5 nonfiction spots, respectively, Stepping Out of Self Deception and Souls in the Hands of a Tender God reflect the community's and the staff's Eastern spiritual leanings. There are currently two practicing Buddhists on staff.

 

"Souls is also a sort of psychology self-help book," Robinson said. "I think there is some significant spirituality in our community and we have a fairly large selection of these titles. We sell more Eastern religion and philosophy than Christianity and Judiasm."

 

Store events, staff recommendations, shelf-talkers, in-store displays, a regular newsletter, five store-run book groups and customer-to-customer word of mouth all shape the list, Robinson said. The Chuckanut Radio Hour--a monthly Lake Wobegon-style broadcast that will be going to local television for a trial run in August--promotes the store and fosters community with a lively format that Robinson admitted with a chuckle, is "nearly a direct rip-off" of Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion.

 

When Robinson chuckles, it's hard not to laugh along. And so it's no surprise that a title he's printed on his Espresso Book Machine and distributed locally for Bookshop Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, Calif., is also on his fiction bestseller list. The Wit and Wisdom of Sarah Palin is a blank book.

 

That sly humor, that smart discourse, that green silence in the pause before laughter, seem to be what the Robinsons' list and their store are all about: liberal, green, spiritual, fiercely local. And funny, too.--Laurie Lico Albanese

 

 

Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War by Andrew Bacevich (Metropolitan)

Stepping out of Self Deception: The Buddha's Liberating Teaching of No-Self by Rodney Smith (Shambhala)

Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer (Doubleday)

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (Penguin)

Souls in the Hands of a Tender God: Stories of the Search for Home and Healing on the Streets by Craig Rennebohm (Beacon)

Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern (It Books)

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn (Vintage)

How to Grow a School Garden: A Complete Guide for Parents and Teachers by Arden Bucklin-Sporer and Rachel Kathleen Pringle (Timber Press)

I Am Nujood, Age 10 Divorced by Nujood Ali (Three Rivers Press)

Lit: A Memoir by Mary Karr (HarperPerennial)

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall (Knopf)

The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism by Andrew Bacevich (Holt)

Koma Kulshan: The Story of Mount Baker by John C. Miles (Chuckanut Editions)

Bellingham Impressions by Mark Turner (Farcountry Press)

 

 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Vintage mass market)

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson (Vintage mass market)

Border Songs by Jim Lynch (Vintage)

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (Vintage)

Little Bee by Chris Cleave (Simon & Schuster)

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson (Knopf hardcover)

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper Perennial)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Knopf hardcover)

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson (Knopf hardcover)

The Wit & Wisdom of Sarah Palin (a blank book)

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford (Ballantine)

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood (Anchor)

One Day by David Nicholls (Vintage)

Star Island by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf)

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann (Random House Trade Paperbacks)

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger (Scribner)